Regret
by Lenore Drake
Summary: A short vignette of Mara's thoughts during I, Jedi


Disclaimer: all these characters and situations are the property of Lucasfilm. I'm not making any money out of them. The particular scene that inspires this little flick belongs to Mike Stackpole.

Author's note: This scribbles just came into my fried brain after reading _I, Jedi_. The scene I'm referring to is based on a passing comment by one of the students (Corran, I think) who mentioned that when Luke was recuperating after Exar Kun's defeat, Mara came to see him while he slept . 

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Regret

The dim glow of Yavin's red dusk spilled through the only window in a simple, austere room. The soft light played with the outlines of the scant furniture, making their shadows danced against the stone floor. The afternoon air tasted typically of tropical jungle moon, heavy, dusky, sweet. Full of life, wild and uninhibited, whispering tales of ancient trees and the small creatures that scurry among its roots, of the faraway waterfalls weeping into a clear, calm pool. The wonders of nature too mundane and commonplace for the wanderlust beating in the hearts of space-dwellers, forever courting the company of the distant stars.

There was a simple bed in the simple, unpresuming room. And it held a reclining figure, sleeping soundly, oblivious to the restless activity of nature just beyond the walls of his cubicle.

Master Skywalker was resting, recovering from his recent ordeal.

The shadows in front of the door stirred and parted to reveal the outline of a young woman, her hair caught a stream of the burning sun and was ablaze with the same fiery desolation. Gracefully, she glided across the room until she stood on the side of the bed, hovering over the resting form cradled in the sweet arms of sleep. Her face reflected the untamed beauty of Tatooine's desert bathed in the waning light of her binary suns, hard as the violent winds roaring through its wastes, unyielding as the burning sands stretching to the corners of the skies. A myriad of emotions flitted across the harsh planes of her features as she looked upon the sleeper. Expression that spoke louder than any words that would ever spill from behind the closed lips. 

They spoke of anger, at him and his reckless ways that nearly cost him his life, not for the first time and not by any means for the last. They spoke of anguish for his pain as well as her own, crying for his loss and failure and grief as her heart wept for her own wayward ways from where he had taken her. They spoke of frustration of not being able to offer him the balm for his wounds as he had given her of hers. They spoke of relief that he'd been able to pull himself from this ordeal, even without her assistance. They spoke of resignation that he might never need her as much as she had needed his help. 

His face was quiet, bathed in the warm light of Yavin's descending sun as her eyes took note of his peaceful expression that belied the ordeals he had been through until recently. The soft iridescent light played with his hair, making the gold seemed brighter, warmer, like the sunshine spilling over the pillow, as he took the rest he so desperately needed. One arm flung above his head, for once completely relaxed and complete safe from the cruelty of the harsh universe that had taken much and demanded even more.

He looked different then, younger, at peace with himself, innocent even. He looked almost like a child, she mused. With sleep, gone were the care and traces of hardships of the day-to-day borne as a Jedi Master. Gone were the burdens he carried without as much as a whisper of complaint, impossible demands exacted upon him, responsibilities that should not be upon a hundred shoulders, let alone just one. With sleep, ten years of life seemed dissolved from that face. It was reminiscent of the face of a boy, a dreamer from long ago, impetuous in his dreams and aspirations, driven by that one goal: to be a Jedi like his father before him. 

The boy that had died as his father's lightsaber cut through his flesh and his words jarred through his heart and broke it into a million tiny pieces in a city of endlessly floating clouds. Died and disappeared beneath the crushing weight of expectation thrown across his shoulders as the last Jedi; a lonely sacrifice for an unmerciful need for perfection.

She wanted desperately to touch his face, stroke his hair, to make sure that he was alive. To make sure he was all right. She wanted to wake him, to look into the depth of his eyes and hear his voice, assuring her all was well.

Standing very still, she looked on.

She had came very close to losing him. Very, very close and she didn't even know of his predicament until almost too late. She didn't know what she would do if he had died. Perhaps she would've killed Kyp Durron. Perhaps she would've tried to take on Exar Kun herself, despite of the ridiculous idea inherent in that task, considering the being's power.

All she knew was that she wouldn't have let the matter go the darkside and all he had taught her be damned. She was the emperor's hand. She could kill them without so much as batting her eyelashes. 

It was frightening how much power he wielded upon her. Be it resulted in the overwhelming compulsion to kill him, or the desire to exact vengeance for the wrongs done to him. 

Her feelings were a maelstrom of contradictory thoughts and sensations, too loud to be ignored, to frightening for contemplation. They were two people, equally desolate in the unbreachable gulf neither dared to thread, unutterable emotions neither ready to voice. And the feeling echoed in the profound silence hovering over the both of them, as one lay sleeping and the other watching.

But he was her friend, something inside her cried out in a wild flare of anguished defiance. It was only natural that she cared for him. Why shouldn't she felt like this? Why couldn't she want to protect him and keep him from harm?

She took a deep breath and steadied herself against the familiar tumult that accompanied the question as her heart wrestled with her brain, frantically seeking, desperate for an answer. Knowing full well no logic or bargaining could reconcile the rampant emotions with the need for calculated detachment that was her second skin. Between the craving for the wings of freedom she never tasted until recently, so sweet after the long years of servitude and false belonging and the need for purpose and drive and lulling security that was once hers before it was cruelly yanked from her hands. 

Freedom to soar high into the darkness and depth of space, or to be grounded in the light as she had been in the dark, once more following a higher purpose than herself, always the soldier, student, comrade, servant, and never the woman, Mara Jade. 

How easy it would be to yield to that siren call, the hypnotic beckoning of the force radiating from its masters. To side with the light as she had sided with the dark and took on one more blind cause after another. To taste again the power, sweet power that was once her constant companion for many years. To listen to its seductive murmurs and give herself completely to its will. Like a moth seeking eagerly for the fire that blazed white-bright and hot, so bright it was collapsing upon itself, flying blindly into its radiance and gladly be consumed in the devastating light.

The shadows on the room were elongated and blurred into night's oblivion as the sun winked out, its last rays retreated from the windowsill. Sounds came from the outside as the night prowlers on the jungle moon stirred, coming to wake in the descent of a bleak night. Sounds that brought back memories, tasting equally bitter and sweet, of nights spent in the malicious beauty of the wilderness on the verdant jungles of Myrkr. Of emotions just as diverged and just as strong. Of the nightmarish hours spent when one part of her mind screamed for her to pull the trigger and the other part desperately held her in check.

Like one of the creatures of the night, she too was awakened from her musings. Her vigil had taken longer than she had meant to allow herself and there's a world outside the door that was waiting for her answer to the unvoiced question that silently hung in the darkening room. She briefly struggled with the notion of waking him, of waiting until he awakened before she bid him goodbye. He had deserved as much. But much as she wanted to speak to him, to see his smile and listened to his gentle voice, what would she do if he asked her to stay?

What would she do if he didn't?

She fought against a sudden taste of bitterness in her mouth and despair in the pit of her stomach. Against descending sadness in a fleeting moment of foreshadowing regret that she had doomed something to die even before it ever blossomed, knowing that this chance might never be again if she walks away from that door now without even a single glance, a word of parting, a kiss good-bye.

The third moon of Yavin slowly rose, bequeathing her sister moon with her soft, gracious light. A nocturnal beast raised its head and let out a sorrowful wail of welcome as she smiled upon the jungles and all the creatures that walk under her beam. The low, mournful sound bespoke of the fall of a long, desolate night where the denizens of the wild preyed upon one another as the moon hung suspended, confused in the wake of the savage celebration in her honor.

She would not wake him. 

Mara's hand moved, seemingly on it's own volition to briefly caress his face, tracing the tired lines etched on the familiar features. One stolen touch, a first caress, and for a long stretch of irrepleviable years, it was the last.

Setting her teeth together, she gathered scattered pieces of her essence and wafting embers of hopes and fears and turmoil back into the unreachable recesses inside of her and buried it deep. 

She took one last look at the sleeping man, capturing his image forever into her memory, burning it into the bronze and steel that was her heart once more before she turned her back and marched purposely towards the door. Away from the room that was suddenly suffused with emotions she couldn't confront. The room that held her heart and and her soul, a burning light too scorching for touch except in secret, too devastating to risk, too precious to ignore. Not just yet, her soul whispered in that last longing look, melting hope with despair, and leaving confusion in its wake.

And then it was too late.

She closed the door softly behind her. A long journey still awaited her. 

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fin


End file.
